Raging Red

For as long as anyone can remember, the Red River of the North aka the Miscousipi (Cree name, meaning 'Red Water River') has had a mind of its own.

The first well-documented attack was launched in April 1798. The victim was Charles Jean Baptiste Chabouillez, a fur trader.

From his home in Quebec, Chaboillez had pierced more than 1,000 miles into ragged wilderness in search of valuable pelts for the North West Company. Finally he set up a post on a dirty, sleepy, docile stream surrounded by a tabletop of flat prairie.

And there he wrote a daily journal. It became the beginning of recorded history for Pembina, North Dakota, the first settlement on the Red River of the North. In daring to invade the vast flood plain belonging to the Red, Chaboillez became one of the Valley's first recorded flood refugees...

Read the about more historic first-hand accounts of living through a Red River flood here...